President Trump spoke at 2018’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) for the second year in a row. Notably, this was the first time that both the President and Vice President spoke at CPAC in consecutive years. This was also the largest crowd in the history of CPAC. I was able to attend with my school.

Speech Highlights

Manufacturers returning to America

Using our own coal in Pennsylvania, West Virginia

Guns in schools

Sanctions on North Korea

Snake Poem

Guns In Schools

Trump refuted claims that he wanted to arm every teacher. He has no desire to arm teachers who say they do not want to be armed. Obviously, that would not be a wise idea. However, Trump believes that allowing teachers with police or military backgrounds to conceal carry at schools should be allowed. Most of them already have guns, but can not bring them into school. He emphasized how students would not know which teachers carried guns, which would be a strong deterrent. Trump said, “It’s time to make our schools a much harder target for attackers.” Everyone agrees with making schools safer but is divided over how to actually accomplish this.

North Korea Sanctions

There were reports before the speech that Trump would discuss new sanctions on North Korea. While he briefly mentioned them at the conclusion of his speech, he did not elaborate much on the sanctions. However, he did call them, “the heaviest sanctions ever imposed on a country before.” Earlier in the speech, Trump explained that he was going to go “off script,” which likely explains him only briefly touching on the new sanctions. This was somewhat interesting considering that these are historical sanctions.

Snake Allegory

President Trump sometimes used a poem about a snake while campaigning. He said that people outside were asking him to tell it. This was part of the going off the script, but it received loud applause. Basically, a snake is compared to an illegal immigrant. Here is a 5-minute video clip of his snake poem:

Overall, I thought the speech was solid and covered many of America’s current issues.